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A Hong Kong High Court judge has thrown out a request by Icap, the world's biggest money broker, for an injunction against BGC Partners which would prevent 37 of its former staff from defecting to the rival firm.

The decision leaves the brokers free to begin work at BGC once their post-employment contractual restrictions with Icap have elapsed.

Icap is now considering appealing the ruling and also intends to seek damages from BGC.

An Icap spokesman said: "This was the first phase of this case. BGC hired 37 of our staff, using the most senior of them, whilst employees, to recruit the rest. We sought an injunction to prevent BGC reaping the fruits of its wrongdoing by using those staff for a period.

"Whilst we did not obtain the full extent of the relief we sought, BGC found itself forced to offer a series of undertakings to the court. We are considering the next phase of our prosecution of this case, which may involve our appealing the decision and will include our seeking damages."

The Hong Kong ruling is the third in a series of victories for BGC, a subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald. A Singapore court determined in March that 51 former staff from rival Prebon Yamane should be free to being work at BGC's new Singapore operation.

In February a Sydney judge ruled that staff poached from Icap's Australian operations by BGC should also be allowed to start work at the firm.

Jay Itzkowitz, special counsel at BGC, said: "This is the second market in which Icap has recently attempted to stifle BGC's development by seeking unwarranted injunctions and the second market in which it has failed. In our view Icap has demonstrated a fear of free and fair competition in markets where they have had a relatively free run of it until now. The court has today made it clear that competition is not an unreasonable commercial activity."